


It Seems Like You're Falling (but it's not a love song)

by shopfront



Category: Smallville
Genre: AU, Community: smallvillebbang, Doomed Relationship, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An 'Alicia wasn't murdered' AU where instead she left Smallville because of Clark's mistrust. She returns to Metropolis a few years later and crosses paths with Chloe, despite her intention to avoid old Smallville acquaintances. Clark is thrown by her reappearance - which awakens old feelings and his guilt over her departure - Oliver sees her as a potential new Justice League recruit, and Lois is concerned about Chloe spending time with Alicia after her unstable past. But Chloe and Alicia still can't seem to stay away from each other, even when other people keep getting in their way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Seems Like You're Falling (but it's not a love song)

**Author's Note:**

> Set mid-season eight, following Hex.

**Prologue, Smallville.**

"Alicia? Alicia!"

By the time Clark heard a car pull into Alicia's driveway, he'd already been all over the property calling for her. Turning back towards the front of the house, he let himself feel cautious relief, but Alicia didn't step out of the car. Lois did instead. She punched him in the shoulder and feigned disappointment that he was too distracted to greet her properly, and then promptly suggested they break into the house if he was so worried.

"You never know Smallville, she could be taking a particularly sound nap despite all the ruckus you've probably been making out here."

Clark waved her off with a vague reply. He'd x-rayed the house ages ago, but no Alicia. No anybody, really, but he was out of places to look and Alicia wasn't exactly welcome around town lately. He doubted she would have wanted to face public spaces alone if she could avoid it. The barn was as empty as the house, except for a dog that barked at them half-heartedly and then proceeded to snuffle at their ankles and try to trip Lois up.

"I think I know-" Lois stopped and sneezed.

"What was that, Lois?" Clark asked automatically, and nudged the dog out of their way so he could check the paddock around the far side of the barn again. There was a love-seat under a tree there that Alicia had always been fond of.

"Damn dogs," she sneezed again and gingerly patted the dog's head before striding past it to follow Clark. "Who set Alicia up, Clark. I think I know who's been setting her up."

*** * * * ***

Clark stood in the doorway and watched while Alicia walked back and forth in front of him.

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

"You don't have to keep apologising, Clark. I understand."

"Then why are you still packing?"

"Because I can't stay here." Alicia paused to look at him for what seemed like the first time all afternoon. She smiled, and took a step forward so she could reach up and caress his face.

He could feel the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he reached for her waist to pull her closer and leant towards her and turned his head to nuzzle her palm.

"I love you, Clark. But I can't be happy here."

Clark felt her slip out of his arms with a sigh, and opened his eyes to watch her walk back towards her dresser.

"Stop. Please, just stop and talk to me!"

"Can't you see? I need to go somewhere where I'm not such a freak. Somewhere where people could be amazed by powers like mine, rather than terrified. A place where people might be able to believe in me, instead of always suspecting me."

"Alicia-"

"There's nothing left for me in Smallville, Clark. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. It just took all of," Alicia paused and waved her hand around vaguely, "this, to make me see it."

"I don't want you to go!"

"Then you should have trusted me."

"Alicia-" The urge to take the pile of clothes out of her hands and make her look him in the eye was itching under his skin, but she wouldn't stop moving. Clark reached for her, but she transported out from under his fingers and all he was left with was an armful of shirts and socks.

Alicia re-materialised on the other side of the room and wiped at her eyes.

"Your belief in me was the only thing keeping me in Smallville. Now I don't even have that. I'm sorry if that hurts you, but it's the truth. Please, _please_ try to accept it."

"I do trust you! I do. I messed up, and I'm sorry. I want you to stay here with me."

"You don't, Clark. Not really. You just feel guilty because you made a mistake."

"I'm sorry for-"

"I'm sorry, too, Clark, but it's not enough. Please. Let yourself out."

"I'm not going anywhere until-"

"Then goodbye, Clark."

"No!" But she was already gone in a swirl of green.

*** * * * ***

"Alicia? Hello? Anyone home?"

Chloe eased open the front door when the handle turned easily under her fingers, and stuck her head in.

"Alicia? Hello?"

There was a rustle and the sound of a door opening and shutting, and then footsteps on the stairs.

"Chloe? What are you doing here?" Alicia stopped half way down, and watched Chloe with a frown.

"Can I…?" Chloe gestured at the foyer and then smiled gratefully and stepped inside when Alicia nodded. "Great, um, thanks. I just wanted to stop by and say hi. You know, see how you're going after everything-"

"Clark told you I was leaving."

"Yeah. He did. He's, uh, pretty torn up about it."

"I am sorry he's hurting, Chloe, but you won't convince me to stay."

"Right! Right, I know that. Why would you listen to me anyway?" Chloe chuckled uneasily and twisted the strap of her bag absentmindedly. "We've never exactly been friends."

Alicia walked the rest of the way down the stairs and stopped in front of Chloe. "No, we haven't."

"Look, I didn't come around because of Clark. I just wanted to apologise. On behalf of myself and, well, a lot of people around here who you probably won't get one from."

"I don't know if I need an apology on behalf of people who wouldn't mean it, Chloe. But thank you."

"You're welcome," Chloe said, smiling tightly.

Alicia didn't return the smile, but she did watch Chloe very closely.

"Is there something on my face?" Chloe finally cracked and asked, rubbing her nose. Alicia shook her head, and her lips finally quirked up at the corners, just a little.

"No. I guess I just never expected to hear you say that."

"I never expected to be saying that, but I guess we're all wrong sometimes. Even me. Maybe especially me." Chloe rolled her eyes and threw up her hands, suddenly blinking away tears. "You certainly opened my eyes recently."

"You'll be there for him, won't you, Chloe?" Alicia said. She stepped forward and grabbed Chloe's hands, holding them tightly. "He needs someone to confide in. Someone who knows everything about him."

"Then he needs you," Chloe insisted, and Alicia dropped her hand just as quickly.

"I can't be that for him anymore," she said, and turned back towards the stairs, speaking over her shoulder. "So you'll have to be."

"Alicia…"

"Have a nice life, Chloe. And thank you, really, for the apology."

Chloe took her time leaving, stopping four times to stare at those stairs and listen to Alicia moving around above her. To consider running up them and trying again to plead with her. But she didn't. In the end, she let herself out, and she shut the front door behind her.

*** * * * ***

"Hey, Earth to Clark. Come in Clark."

Chloe waved her hands in the air and laughed, but Clark didn't look up even though she really was right in his line of vision, if he'd only oblige her by flicking his eyes up a few centimetres. Instead, he sat and stared at his computer in the Torch, although there was nothing on the screen. Chloe even circled around the desk to check, but he was looking at an empty desktop. His wallpaper wasn't even particularly interesting.

"Hey," she said again, only a little softer this time as she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "You in there?"

He turned his head toward her a fraction - only in such the tiniest of increments that she barely caught it, but Chloe liked to take her victories where she could get them - which was the only way she knew she had his attention. His infamous moping face was clearly firmly in place. The Great Clark Mope, a semi-frequent and legendary event among his family, friends, and even the odd acquaintance. It just wasn't something she was used to seeing directed at anyone without the words Lana and Lang in their name.

She pulled up a chair and settled beside him.

"It must have been hard for her, huh. Being just another Smallville meteor freak, and having everyone judge you without knowing anything else about you. Knowing some people will never be able to accept you."

Clark shrugged and fiddled with a pencil.

"Must have been hard for you, too. Saying goodbye. Letting go of someone so unique."

Clark hunched his shoulders like he wanted to curl in on himself and disappear, and refused to meet her eyes. Damn. _Comforting, Chloe, go for comforting._

"I'm so sorry, Clark. I want you to know that I'm here for you if you ever need to talk."

"Thanks, Chloe," Clark finally said, but he still wouldn't look at her. "I appreciate it."

It wasn't cold, but wasn't exactly welcoming either.

"Well. You know where I am." Chloe stood up and fiddled with her handbag for a minute.

He just shrugged a single shoulder again.

"I really am sorry," she repeated, but Clark didn't reply so Chloe bit her lip and made her way out of the Torch office.

 

*** * * * ***

  


**Metropolis.**

Chloe didn't understand how running a small foundation could keep her busier than being an investigative journalist. Reporting was the career option that was meant to be keep her up nights and on call at all hours. Directing counselling sessions and supervising fundraising plans wasn't meant to be the choice that would interfere with her playing sidekick to superheroes. She jiggled her foot impatiently and stared at the traffic lights, trying to ignore the way the breeze of cars zooming by was flinging the hem of her skirt around. The pedestrian walk lights had been stubbornly refusing to flick over into green for what was starting to feel like hours, right when she needed to get back to Isis. The coffee in her hand was quickly growing cold and irritating, despite how important, and worth running across the road for, it had seemed ten minutes ago.

Finally, the lights changed. Her phone started vibrating cheerfully through the side of Chloe's handbag at the same time, and she stumbled over the curb as she tried to fish for it without dropping her cup.

"How do you feel about lunch?" Oliver's voice sounded tinny and overwhelmed by street noise when she finally crammed the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

"You mean the second most important meal of the day? I'm not a fan."

Oliver laughed loudly, making Chloe wince as the connection crackled.

"Is there a reason?"

"Are you surveying eating habits for a living now?" Chloe laughed, and skipped neatly up and over the opposite curb with a mental smirk. Take that, city streets.

"Call it idle curiosity. Where are you, anyway, I can barely hear you."

"A street corner near Isis with an inexplicable lack of good reception," Chloe sighed, and ducked around a few slow walkers. "And lunch is inconveniently placed in the middle of the work day when I never have enough time to eat properly."

"You sound like Lois," he chuckled. "I have reservations at that little organic place around the corner from my new office. What do you say, feeling peckish?"

"Little?" Chloe laughed, and stepped aside into an alley entrance to escape the stream of people. She slid her coffee cup onto a ledge and switched the phone to her other ear, gratefully stretching out her neck. "A drink at that place probably costs more than my monthly phone bill!"

"Indulge me. I think the birthday girl deserves a celebration she actually enjoys."

"It's not my birthday anymore, Oliver-"

"Just say 'meet me there at one,' Chloe."

Chloe just laughed again and shook her head at the alley wall.

"Say it."

"Meet me there at one, Chloe?"

"Good choice."

Her phone shut with a satisfying click, but then Chloe checked her watch and groaned. The stupid street lights had already made her late, but now it was even worse. Snatching up her lukewarm coffee, Chloe dived back onto the crowded sidewalk with every intention of rushing back to Isis as fast as her feet could carry her. However, less than half a block further down the street, her attention was caught by a girl with long, blonde hair brushing past her and her steps faltered. She could have sworn…

But no, that was ridiculous. Besides, the girl had already disappeared behind the jangle of a shop door. The sooner she got to her meeting the sooner she could meet Oliver for lunch.

*** * * * ***

"I was starting to think you weren't going to make it," Oliver said and put his drink down so he could stand to greet her.

"You wouldn't believe this meeting I just had, it's been messing up my whole day."

"You should have a drink and tell me about it," Oliver replied as he helped her into her seat. Then he resettled himself and waved over a waiter, whom he spoke to incomprehensibly for moment and then waved away again. Chloe was just grateful she'd made it here at all. Isis needed a new accountant and maybe a new fundraising assistant as well. Preferably people with a sense of humour and some comprehension of how to get through a meeting agenda without taking three times longer than necessary.

"You're out of breath," Oliver observed with a chuckle. "Bad day?"

"I know I've been taking on a lot lately, with Isis and everything, but this is getting a little ridiculous," she admitted, and rolled her eyes when Oliver's smirk widened. She accepted a glass of water and let herself slump in her seat.

"You're cute when you're flustered."

"Oh, really?"

Oliver just laughed at her best unimpressed expression. "And, well, it is nice to see a little bit of that Chloe spark back in your eye."

"I guess it's not exactly bad to back among the weird and unexplained," Chloe shrugged. "So did you order for us while you were busy showing off your fancy education and your fancy reservation in a restaurant where waiters speak several European languages?"

"You bet I did." Oliver sprawled back in his seat and took a sip of his own drink. "And for your information, I didn't get a _fancy_ education. The investment in my skills and knowledge was nothing short of remarkable."

Chloe nodded seriously, and unsuccessfully drowned her chuckles in her glass.

"And speaking of education, I've been meaning to ask. That book Clark gave you. Does it harken back to golden years at Smallville High?"

"I guess you could say that."

"Not so golden then?"

"Things weren't so bad, despite the constant sideshow of strange and dangerous."

"Which you feel like you're back among, did you say?"

"Oh, it wasn't anything important. It was just, after you called me this morning - I thought I saw an old acquaintance."

"Oh? A weird and unexplained acquaintance?"

"No, well. Sort of. She turned out to be alright in the end. One of Clark's ex-girlfriend's actually. It didn't end well."

"Clark's ex-girlfriends?" Oliver stared at her for a second, and then quickly gathered himself up and leant against the table top. "I didn't realise our resident boy scout had left such a trail of them."

"Oh," Chloe smothered an uneasy giggle. "You know Clark. His oblivious streak has also been known to extend to breaking a few hearts."

"So tell me about this ex you saw."

"Hmm? Alicia. At least I think I saw her. Although I can't begin imagine what she'd be doing around Metropolis. Last time anyone saw her she was planning to move far, far away from anything even remotely connected to Smallville."

"That's quite the-" Oliver broke himself off as a waitress swung by their table with plates of food. They smiled and thanked her, and then waited until she'd slipped away again.

"She was framed for murder, and Clark - along with the rest of us - believed it."

Oliver whistled long and low, and shook his head. "That's rough."

"Yeah. Like I said, she packed for anywhere that wasn't small town Kansas after that, and who could blame her? Clark was all she had in Smallville."

"How did he…?"

"He took it really hard."

"Ah." Oliver nodded and frowned. Chloe knew she didn't have to say it. Clark taking things personally wasn't exactly pretty or unusual.

"I probably just imagined it was her. All I really got a good look at was long, blonde hair, which is hardly a damning identification."

*** * * * ***

That night Chloe had shut down the computers and closed away her surveillance room in preparation for heading home for some much needed sleep when her ear piece started beeping from where she'd dropped it on the conference table. She snatched it up and had the doors reopened and her finger hovering over the main power button by the time it was securely back over her ear.

"Watchtower is online, what's the problem?"

"Don't panic, but I may have, er, miscalculated something a little," Oliver's voice came over the ear piece, sounding a little sheepish.

"Miscalculated what?" Chloe hit the power and tapped impatiently at the mouse while everything booted back up. "What happened? Is everyone clear? What can I do?"

"Nothing to do with the mission. I just may have mentioned a certain ex to a certain Boy Scout. He's, uh-" Chloe heard a familiar whoosh in the front room and fought the urge to groan, "-on his way. Sorry, Watchtower. Really sorry."

"Chloe!"

"Right. Watchtower out." Chloe watched her monitors hum to life, and then immediately hit shut down again. "In here, Clark," she called, and walked back over to the conference table to continue coiling leads and packing away the special equipment she'd needed to monitor their latest mission.

"Oliver said you saw Alicia in Metropolis."

"You're not beating around the bush tonight, are you."

"Chloe-"

"Oliver should have said I _thought_ I saw Alicia. It was only for a second, and I'm not entirely sure I wasn't imagining things. I've had a very, very long day."

"Why would you see Alicia now if she's not really there?"

"I don't know, Clark. Maybe your birthday present got me a little too wrapped up in old memories. Besides, I was in such a rush this morning I barely knew where my head was, let alone who was standing in front of me. I'm sure it's just a case of an over-active imagination."

"Have you tried to look for her?"

"Look for her?" Chloe dropped the cable she was twisting and turned to stare at Clark. "I don't even know for sure that I saw her! Why would I look for her?"

"Why wouldn't you, when you could so-" Clark gestured to the computers cooling behind her, "-easily find out if you did see her."

"I hardly think that this-" Chloe mimicked Clark's hand-wave, "-should be used for that."

"Why not? You need to know if you saw her," Clark said, pacing between the room and Chloe. "It's important!"

"Important for me or you, Clark?" Chloe snapped, and crossed her arms. Then she sighed and dropped them back to her sides again, when Clark's eyes went really wide and he hung his head.

"I just want to know one way or the other."

"Look, Clark, I appreciate that Alicia is a touchy subject for you, but it's really late. I can barely see straight as it is, and we both have work tomorrow, only one of us isn't super-powered. Can you push this a little less hard, please?"

"If she's here Chloe-"

"If Alicia was here and she wanted to see you, don't you think she would have found you already?"

"She doesn't know I'm in Metropolis."

"No, but I'm sure she's well aware of the location of the Kent Farm. I get that if she's here then you'd like the chance to clear the air, but really, Clark, you don't know that she is!"

"But what if she is and I don't take the opportunity to apologise to her?"

"Don't you think you apologised enough to her back in Smallville?"

"I don't know!"

"Clark, it was just a passing fancy. I probably would have forgotten all about it if I hadn't been meeting Oliver a few hours later. Just… let it go."

"But, Chloe-"

"Please, Clark. It's three in the morning and that ear piece gives me a headache when I have to wear it for five hours straight. I'm a little preoccupied with my exhaustion right now."

Clark turned his face away from a moment, but when he looked at her again, he was smiling dimly.

"I'm sorry, Chloe. Are you alright to get home?"

"Yes." Chloe walked over and shoved at his shoulder, turning him towards the door. "If you'll give me the chance, I'll get myself to bed just fine."

*** * * * ***

It was a little over a week before she bumped into Alicia again, only this time, their collision went with a bit more of a bang. Chloe was rummaging through her bag while she walked, trying to hold handfuls of paperwork and other bits and pieces in one arm, so that she could see the items at the very bottom of her handbag. She heard her name but didn't look up in time, and then suddenly there was paper all over the ground.

"Hi Chloe," Alicia said softly, and smiled as she crouched to help Chloe gather her things back up.

"Alicia?" Chloe automatically accepted the phone and notebook Alicia held out and tried to pick her jaw up off the floor. "Oh my god, hi! How are you?"

"I'm good. Did we get everything?" Alicia scanned the floor around them, and then stepped back into the queue for coffee.

"This is so strange," Chloe said and followed her. "I thought I saw you a little while ago just a few blocks from here."

"It could have been me," Alicia laughed. "I'm working a few buildings over, so I've been getting coffee here most days."

"Huh. So you're back in Metropolis, then? Like, for good?"

"Maybe. I'm a personal assistant and my boss got transfered. I'm waiting to see how things go before I decide, really."

"Personal assistant. Flashy. Work for anyone I'd know?"

Alicia just flicked her hair back out of her face and chuckled. "Still a reporter, Chloe?"

"Oh, no," Chloe waved away the question. "I'm not writing anymore. I run a charity here in Metropolis. It's called called Isis."

Alicia pulled back and considered her for a moment.

"I swear, my dirt digging days are behind me."

"I've heard of Isis," Alicia said, slowly, but then she brightened. "And no, nobody you'd know, just a self-important, middle management type."

Chloe nodded and smiled and they shifted forward a few steps with the cue, and made awkward small talk until it was their turn to give their orders.

"Do you come here often? I'm just picking up the mid-morning coffees for my boss and a few of the secretaries."

"Depends how badly I need some proper coffee and how busy my schedule is. Coming here usually makes me late for something, but then I've always been a bit of a coffee addict so I usually think it's worth it."

"Reporting and coffee were always the two things I never expected to change about you," Alicia said, and then ducked her head and shrugged. "Not that anyone really stays the same person that they were in high school."

"You remember my cousin, Lois? She works near here too, at the Daily Planet with Clark. I used to as well, but it just... didn't suit me so well in the end."

Alicia nodded, and started to reply, but then their coffees were called. Chloe quickly whipped up her cup and stepped away from the counter, but Alicia had to take a minute to juggle cups and trays and double check with the barista that she knew which cup held which coffee.

"How is Clark?" Alicia kept her eyes firmly on her hands as she asked, and fumbled when she reached for a clean spoon.

"He's good," Chloe said slowly, and took a careful sip from her own coffee while she waited. "I can't believe you can remember all those different coffee and sugar combinations."

"You get used to it. It's almost always the same combination of orders anyway, so it's easy to learn." She turned a wide smile on Chloe and picked up her tray, and Chloe followed her towards the door with a smile of her own. She stopped outside the door, and turned

"I'm glad I ran into you, Chloe," she said finally. "To be honest, I was nervous about seeing anyone I knew from Smallville."

Chloe swallowed hard. She opened her mouth to speak, but Alicia didn't give her a chance to start talking.

"I had it all worked up into this big, horrible thing in my head. But it's been nice to catch up. Maybe we could do it again sometime, properly. Over coffee again? You could tell me more about Isis."

"That sounds great!" Chloe dived for a free table, and put down her coffee so she could rummage through her bag again. "Let me give you my number."

They switched phones and programmed their numbers in, and then Alicia smiled and hurried out the door with a tray of coffees in her left hand, and two more cups carefully balanced in her right. Chloe called a farewell after her and then stood and toyed with her phone for a moment. It was only for a moment though, before she caught someone glaring at her for hogging one of the only free tables and felt the urge to hop to back to Isis. She grabbed her things and dodged between the people queued up to and through the coffee shop door, and headed back.

One thing was for sure though, she wasn't going to say a single word to Clark. Not yet, anyway.

*** * * * ***

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

Chloe blinked and groaned and rolled over to look at her bedside clock.

"Clark, it's five in the morning."

"I can't believe-"

"For the record, five in the morning isn't an okay time for you to let yourself into someone else's apartment. Especially when they're not used to getting up with the roosters like you are."

"I've haven't had to get up with the roosters since I got my super speed, but that-"

"Makes this even worse." Chloe let herself fall back into bed and dragged a pillow over her head. "Please go away!"

"Chloe, we need to talk about-"

"You could at least make me coffee before you start yelling at me."

The silence after that seemed to stretch a little, so Chloe emerged briefly to glare at Clark. He shuffled his feet and gave her a sheepish half-smile.

"I don't know how to work the coffee machine downstairs?"

Chloe groaned and collapsed again. "At some point, when I am more awake, we need to have a talk about your new tendency to have heated conversations in the early hours of the morning. Go home!"

"No."

"No?" Chloe gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut and buried her head further under her covers. Let the person with super-hearing work out what her muffled words meant, because she was too tired. Besides, Clark had his stubborn chin out pose happening.

It was too early for Clark's stubborn chin.

"You've been talking to Alicia and-"

"Clark, I swear-"

"- you told Oliver about that but you didn't tell me-"

"- I'll take back my key-

"- and you probably told Lois as well-"

"- and then I will sic Lois on you."

"I…"

"That's right, Clark. Come back later, or I will call Lois and tell her all about this new breaking and entering thing you're doing." Chloe pushed herself up on one elbow and started fumbling for her phone on her bedside table.

"Chloe-"

"If you don't come back at a more reasonable time-" She raised an eyebrow and flipped her phone open.

"Can we just-"

"Lois Lane, Clark. I'm dialing."

"… I'll come back in a few hours?"

"Just make sure it's after nine."

As she pulled the covers back up over her head with a huff, Chloe was completely willing to employ hyperbole and say that she'd never before been quite so grateful to hear the whoosh of Clark's super-speed in action.

*** * * * ***

It was only natural though, that when Clark popped up at Isis to continue the conversation at a more reasonable time, Chloe happened to be on the phone to Alicia.

"No, I'm glad you called - yes, that sounds good - okay great, I'll see you then - bye!"

"That was Alicia," Clark pointed out unnecessarily. Chloe stomped on the urge to point out that everyone in the room was well aware of his super-hearing, thank you very much, as she slipped her mobile into her pocket.

"Sometimes I think you came with a built in radar system," Chloe muttered before she plastered on a sunny smile. "Hello, Clark, come on in."

He furrowed his brow at her, but he did follow her sweeping hand gesture and help himself to a seat.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry for barging in on you this morning."

"Well, you certainly could have done it a little more gracefully. Can I ask what brought about this change of heart?"

"Lois might have said something," Clark said and ducked his head.

"Really?"

"If you could," he started, then stopped and rubbed at the back of his neck, and avoided her eyes. "Could you tell Lois I apologised? That would be… helpful."

Chloe smirked. "Well, I know I didn't give you away. I take it you couldn't keep your mouth shut about Alicia?"

"Not exactly." Clark grimaced.

"I'll let Lois know she can call off the guard dogs," Chloe chuckled. "Was there anything else, Clark?"

"I want to see Alicia."

"I really think that's up to her, don't you?" Chloe pushed back from the conference table and picked up a stack of paper to ferry over to the filing cabinets.

"You know how to contact her, Chloe. Where she is. I just want to talk to her."

"Still, that's really up to Alicia."

"Chloe, please."

"What do you expect me to do, Clark?" Chloe sighed and jammed another file into a cabinet. "As far as I know, she stills has her powers. If she doesn't want to talk to you, then she can make sure she doesn't have to."

"Then you talk to her, for me. Explain that I just want to see her."

"Clark."

"Chloe."

She turned and leant back against the file cabinet with her arms crossed.

"I can't promise anything, Clark."

"But you'll try?"

"All we've done is exchange greetings and pleasantries. I highly doubt she's going to want to hear anything from me that boils down to passing along your messages."

"Chloe-"

"Fine, yes, I'll mention something to her! But I'm not going to push her either, Clark."

"I just want our last words to each other to be better than they were, can you tell her that?"

"Yes, Clark. I can tell her that."

*** * * * ***

"I'm really glad you came," was the first thing out of Chloe's mouth a few days later, and she was so nervous about the meeting after everything that had happened with Clark that she practically tripped over herself to say it. But Alicia just smiled graciously and settled herself down opposite Chloe without remarking on her clumsy social graces, or bolting and running like Chloe half expected her to.

"I'm glad I came, too."

"Wow, it's not very nice weather out there, is it. Did you get very wet walking here?"

Alicia threw back her head and laughed freely, while Chloe blushed.

"I didn't walk through the rain to get here, Chloe," she said with a smirk and an raised eyebrow. "And I don't think we came here to talk about the weather."

"Right, sorry."

"It's alright. I'm not really sure what to say either, it's been so long."

"And we never really-" Chloe cut herself off and wanted to sink through the floor.

"Got along very well in Smallville? It's okay, Chloe. It's just the truth."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me today. I haven't felt this socially awkward since high school."

"Isn't that meant to be normal when reuniting with old classmates?" Alicia said and wrapped her hands around her coffee. "I had a look at the counter before you got here, but there doesn't seem to be much worth eating."

"Really? They normally have something at least vaguely appealing."

"I saw some lackluster muffins, but that was about it."

"Oh." Chloe sat back and bit her lip.

"Don't look so worried," Alicia laughed when she noticed Chloe's expression. "I don't mind. I meant it when I said I wanted to catch up, the food isn't important."

"Are you sure?"

"It doesn't matter, I got the afternoon off work so I've got plenty of time. I suspect you do, too? I did some research on the Isis foundation, and I saw that you're your own boss, right? That you run the place."

Chloe nodded and opened her mouth, but Alicia kept on talking without her.

"It must be nice to be doing something that you enjoy, and at your own pace."

"Well, I just took Isis over from Lana really. It was a nice change from working under Lex Luthor at the Daily Planet, but somehow the hours don't seem to be getting any better."

"Maybe you just need to take a break and recharge your batteries. How do you feel about finding something a little more substantial to eat?"

"You mean a proper lunch?" Chloe grinned widely and made a tsk-ing noise at Alicia. "Are you asking me to play hooky?"

"Absolutely." Alicia threw back her head and downed the last of her coffee. "Are you in?"

"Lots of people seem to be taking me to lunch in restaurants lately, but okay. Sure."

"Lots of people?"

"Oh, I'd just made lunch plans with a friend the day that I first thought I saw you back in Metropolis." Chloe said as she aimed her plate and cup at a bin on the way to the door.

"Did you go somewhere nice?" Alicia asked, and dropped her coffee container in after her Chloe's. They ducked around a few other customers and reached the door; Chloe held it open for Alicia, who grinned and practically bounced through it.

"It was very definitely nice, and very definitely expensive."

"Oh," Alicia said and stopped on the sidewalk. "A date, then?"

"Just a friend who likes to share his nice things."

Alicia grinned.

"Well, I mightn't be able to do expensive but I do know a great little place on the other side of town."

"The other side of town? I know I'm my own boss my own boss, Alicia, but I do have to go back to work at some point."

"Don't be silly," Alicia said, and grabbed Chloe's arm to tug her out from under the coffee shop awning and into an alley. "I'll take us there. It's only a second away." Chloe followed her easily, though Alicia kept her fingers gentle and loose around her wrist, as if she expected Chloe to tug free at any moment.

"You mean, you want to-" Chloe gestured between them, and then to the alleyway around them.

"Yes," Alicia looked intently into her eyes for a long moment and then stepped closer, holding out her other hand. Chloe felt her stomach flutter, and took a deep breath to try and steady herself.

"Okay," she said, and stepped into Alicia's arms. She watched as Alicia's smile relaxed, and cast her mind back to Alicia transporting her across Smallville to watch Clark catch a car. But it had all happened so quickly, and she hadn't trusted Alicia in the slightest then; her memories were all focused on how Alicia moved instead of what teleporting felt like. "You're sure about this?"

"There's nothing to worry about," Alicia whispered into her hair, and then the world broke apart and reformed around them. Chloe shuddered in her arms for a moment before everything stabilised, but Alicia's hands never once faltered in their careful grip on her arms "See, you're fine."

"I suppose you're used to nervous teleporters, huh?" Chloe said as she stepped back, brushing her hair out of her face and straightening her jacket.

"You did pretty good."

Chloe tried to repress a shiver as Alicia grabbed her hand again, and bounced out of the new alleyway and towards a door with Chloe in tow.

"You're going to love this place. It's charming and quirky, and the food is really good, too," she sing-songed over her shoulder.

"I'm sure I will," Chloe murmured, and tightened her grip on Alicia's hand.

*** * * * ***

There were two messages on her phone when Alicia dropped Chloe back at Isis. The first was a text from Lois: _Just put him out of his misery already._

The second was a voicemail from Oliver.

She hit play and listened to the first fifteen seconds, counted multiple repetitions of the names Clark and Alicia, and rolled her eyes

Carefully, she laid the phone on the counter and then she started wandering around, hanging up her coat and refreshing her email inbox. Then she picked her mobile back up, waved the phone near her ear to check for the sounds of 'Clark' or 'Alicia,' and dropped it back down again.

"Now you know how Watchtower felt last week," she muttered to herself as she flicked through her mail. She didn't try to tell herself she wasn't relieved when the voicemail message ended and she could shut her phone off and her computer, too. Just two little buttons to hit and then she could curl up in her favourite chair without any distractions apart from paperwork. There was a particular mindless joy to sorting out piles of paper so they could be filed away. It was a menial task she was probably too busy not to hand off to someone else, but she liked how repetitive and quiet it was. Nothing but the rustle of pages and letting her thoughts run free, without it being a total waste of her time. There was also the pile of assorted print outs and reports she'd asked her part time secretary to put in order and then assemble into a folder. It had been left out on the side cabinet for her return, like she'd requested, but she knew that flicking through the contents would tear down her pleasant mood.

Good feelings seemed to be rare and valued commodities for her lately, so she was going to enjoy them while she could.

Her thoughts quickly ran all the way back to the restaurant. Having lunch across the table from Alicia had been mesmerising. She was starting to wonder how she'd missed it back in Smallville (although the murder attempts and Alicia's attraction to Clark probably had something to do with it) but Alicia was bouncy and enthusiastic, and very warm.

Chloe tugged her collar a little looser and dragged a larger stack of unsorted paper across the table towards her in a bid to distract herself from feeling uselessly embarrassed after the fact, but it was too late. Her cheeks were warm and she felt horribly twitchy and self-conscious remembering how much she'd stared, helplessly.

"Snap out of it, Chloe, she's not that pretty" she muttered to a small pile of receipts and an appointment diary, and caught herself and quickly looked around the room.

She was going to be a lost cause for the remainder of the day, that much was obvious. Her mind refused to let go of the image of Alicia's wide smile or the sound of her infectious giggle. But the bounce of her hair after she curled it around her fingers when she was nervous, or thinking particularly hard, was the worst.

Chloe reached up to tug at her own short strands, and pulled a lock in front of her eyes so she could stare at it. It was just hair. The colour was even similar, and Chloe's also curled at the ends when she treated it right. But, somehow, it wasn't quite as cute if it wasn't Alicia's.

*** * * * ***

"I've been thinking about what you said last week. About Clark."

"Oh?" Chloe said over her shoulder as she reached into her fridge for a bottle of juice and eyed the next set of cupboards.

"Actually, I did more than think."

Chloe dropped the juice on the counter and then paused in her hunt for clean glasses and glanced over, before throwing herself back into the search with renewed energy. Alicia watched Chloe out of the corner of her eye, twirling a lock of her hair around her index finger.

"I went around to the farm earlier, and I know I told you I didn't want to talk to anyone from Smallville - anyone else, I mean - so I didn't want him to blindside you later, I just-"

"It's fine," Chloe said, and absently watched her own fingers clench around the cupboard shelf edge, where Alicia couldn't see.

"I did mean it when I said I didn't want to talk to anyone."

Chloe cleared her throat and nodded.

"I just couldn't stop thinking about how you said he really wanted to talk to me for closure or something, and I realised I didn't want to give him the chance to surprise me."

"Clark is good at doing that," Chloe agreed with a wry smile.

"Right. So you're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad? You can see Clark if you want to, and if anything, it'll stop him bugging me."

"I just... thought you might been angry or worried about it."

"Because of your history together?"

Alicia nodded and bit her lip.

"I…," Chloe started, hestitated, bit her own lip to mirror Alicia, and then turned back to the cupboard, searching for glasses in a flurry. "To be honest, Alicia, I probably would have been."

Finally coming up with a dusty glass in each hand from her lowest kitchen cupboard, she turned to the sink and carefully rinsed them out.

"But?" Alicia finally said, breaking the silence, as Chloe poured.

"But I did a bit of digging. Careful, the glass is still a bit slippery," Chloe said, and passed Alicia her juice without meeting her eyes.

"Digging? You mean, about me."

"Yeah," Chloe said and took a big gulp of her drink. "I suppose you can take the girl out of the bullpen but you can't take the journalist out of the girl, right?"

"What did you find?"

"Alicia Baker, one very lauded, very capable personal assistant to numerous companies over the years. No further criminal history, no further pertinent medical history." Chloe let her glass drop to the counter with a soft thud, and steeled herself to look up, but now Alicia wasn't meeting her eyes.

"I suppose I can't blame you, after everything that happened. Of course you'd still be suspicious," she said, softly, and stood up.

"Alicia, wait!" Chloe started, and quickly ducked around the kitchen island, and grabbed her forearm, pulling her back. "It's not like that."

"Then what's it like?"

"Well, okay. Maybe it sort of is like that. But I promise you, I didn't run any search program that we don't routinely use at Isis. It's just-"

"That meteor rock exposure apparently strips me of my right to privacy?" Alicia's eyebrows knitted, and she started tugging her arm out of Chloe's hand.

"Yes!" Chloe cried, desperate. "It strips _all of us_ of our privacy. I promise you I felt horrible when I had to look through that folder, but I still had to do it. Just give me a moment to explain. Please, Alicia."

She didn't answer, but she stopped pulling so hard at Chloe's grip.

"It was part habit, part precaution, and okay, fine, a little bit of plain old curiosity. You know as well as anyone that sometimes meteor infections can make people dangerous, and all the education and awareness support Isis can do won't ever change that, so I have to be careful with my contacts. I have to make sure that if someone with a meteor infection turns out to be on violent side of needing help, that nobody can point a finger back at Isis and say we should have known better."

"You said 'us.'"

"I did." Chloe took a deep breath and released Alicia, instead turning and walking to the couch.

_Please, follow me._

She did, though she didn't sit.

"You have to protect Isis."

"I do. If I don't, then we're not around to help people who have the meteor infection but not the psychosis."

"So that's what you meant? Helping us makes you one of us, somehow?" Alicia scoffed.

"No. I am one of you."

They looked at each other for a beat, before Alicia started shaking her head.

"Is it really so surprising?" Chloe asked quickly. "Sometimes I wonder how anyone makes it out of Smallville without a meteor rock mutation."

"But you didn't-"

"Have it last time you saw me? I might have, I honestly don't know. But I wasn't aware of it, if that's what you're asking."

Alicia finally sat down next to Chloe, heavily.

"I won't blame you if you don't want to see me again, but I swear I didn't run anything on you other than the routine background checks I run on everyone who comes into Isis."

"So you're not concerned about me seeing Clark, because you're not worried that it'll make me crazy again."

"I'm not a doctor. I have no idea if seeing Clark could make you sick again, but I didn't find anything to disprove what you told us last time we saw you. Nothing to suggest that you're not as healthy and in control as the next person, now. That's enough for me to drop the great big wall of suspicion."

"If only you had Isis a few years ago, then," Alicia said with a hollow chuckle, and then dropped her head back against the couch, so that she was staring at the ceiling. "What can you do?" she asked, eyes fixed upwards. Chloe's lips quirked.

"I can heal people."

She watched as Alicia blinked a few times, and then sat up straight again.

"Seriously?"

"Mhmm," Chloe nodded and let her smile stretch a little bigger. Alicia's eyes creased at the corners and her legs twitched, as if she wanted to bounce them. "Not bad for the super power lottery, huh?"

Alicia just grinned at her, and Chloe grinned back, relieved. Some of the tension had bled out of the room with her confession, and it was exciting, in it's own way. Isis sessions were always about other peoples abilities, not hers, and she didn't often knowingly meet up with the meteor infected unless they were armed and dangerous. Lois, Jimmy, Clark. None of them could really understand, not even Clark, and even if they could all they would do is worry.

This was… nicer than she'd expected it to be.

Alicia's grin quickly started to fade though, and she changed it for a pensive expression as she seemed to examine Chloe's face.

"I need some time to think about all of this," she finally said, and Chloe nodded and helped her to her feet.

"For what it's worth, I don't regret being honest."

"I guess I can't fault you for that." Alicia shrugged one shoulder and offered a smile, and then shimmered away, leaving Chloe with an empty apartment and a kitchen in disarray. She wandered over to throw herself on her bed, and dragged a pillow down from the top to curl around.

"Universe, one, Chloe, zero," she muttered into it, and sighed.

*** * * * ***

For all that she had thought she was jealous of Clark and Lois working together at the Daily Planet, there also times like this when Chloe was vividly reminded of all the ways it could have been a total disaster.

"What do I need to say to her? She doesn't understand."

Just like this. She'd had enough problems with Clark randomly turning up at her desk with whatever the current emotional crisis was, and flailing around until he threw the whole mess in her lap, and that was before he worked there as well. Now there no Chloe at the Daily Planet, but there was plenty of Clark doing the same thing with Chloe and her desk at Isis.

The thought of how bad it could have been to also be stuck working across from him all day make her cry a little inside.

"Look, Clark. Can you just-" she started, but she had to take a deep breath and steel herself when she caught sight of his expression. "Please, take your Alicia issues to Lois. Or Oliver. Or Bart, even." _And stop giving me puppy eyes._

"Chloe, I-"

"Alicia doesn't want to play this game."

"There's no game!"

"You've already talked to her. You said she told you she wasn't interested in opening up old wounds. Can you really blame her?"

"I just-"

"Clark! Please. You're my best friend, but you have to talk to someone else about this."

"And who am I meant to talk to?"

"Lois. Oliver. Bart! You could even pick up a phone and call your mother. I'm sorry but I'm not going to be your personal agony aunt on this one."

"Funny, when my ex-girlfriend comes breezing back into town, I kind of expected to be able to talk to my best friend about it."

"I'm sorry, Clark, but I've played monkey in the middle for you before and I'm sick of it. Besides, I've enjoyed spending time with Alicia but we're still getting to know each other. I can't sway her for you."

"Chloe-"

"Nor do I want to. We're not close enough for it to work, and I really don't want to jeopardise whatever friendship we might be able to build."

Clark looked at her for a long moment after that.

"I didn't realise you were getting that close."

"It's just nice to talk to someone who's removed from all the baggage from the last few years, and is a fellow meteor infected person, and isn't also a client at Isis."

"You know," Clark started, staring at her intensely, but she quickly threw up a hand to cut him off.

"Whatever you're going to say, Clark, don't. I'm fine, everything at Isis is fine, it was just nice to talk to someone different for a change. Okay?"

"If you say so, but if you need to talk-"

"I know where to find you." Chloe nodded with as much self-assuredness as she could, and ushered him towards the door. "Now don't you have a stake-out of some description to be getting to?"

Clark abruptly went pale.

"What time is it?" he asked, a little desperately.

"Break another watch?" Chloe giggled. "I'm guessing you're already late, so you better get your super speed on before Lois decides to take it out of your hide."

Clark paled a little further, but managed to roll his eyes in mutual Lois commiseration before he disappeared in flurry of air. Chloe watched with a sigh as papers on her table rippled in the breeze, and a few slipped off altogether and drifted towards the floor. She walked away, leaving them there.

*** * * * ***

*

When there was an abrupt knock at the door the next morning, Chloe expected to open it and find Clark in another crisis - probably Lois related this time, explaining the careful politeness of knocking - so she didn't think anything of her hair standing on end and her rumpled pajamas. But instead, she found Alicia standing on her doorstep.

"I thought we could talk over coffee?" She said with a small, grim smile. "It worked for us better last time."

Chloe gaped at her a moment, and then stepped back and waved Alicia in.

"Sure, uh. Just let me throw on some clothes?"

Alicia was still hovering by the door when Chloe emerged again, still feeling groggy and only marginally more presentable, but at least no longer wearing her nightclothes or fuzzy rabbit slippers.

"Maybe we could just get something downstairs," Alicia said, and then raised her eyebrows in question while Chloe fumbled for her handbag and keys.

"Sounds good," she yawned as they headed out the door. She pulled it shut with a yank, and listened for the click of the lock, and then carefully followed Alicia down the stairs, still rubbing at her eyes. Chloe smiled and said good morning to the Talon serving girls as they each recognised her, and then mutely followed Alicia as she ordered for them and then bee-lined for a table with their coffees in hand.

"So. I wasn't expecting to see you so soon," Chloe admitted once she'd had some caffeine to fortify herself.

"I don't think I was expecting to be back here so quickly either."

"I also didn't exactly have the best timing." Chloe cringed a little inside admitting it, and tried to drown the twinge with coffee.

Alicia tilted her head at Chloe. "I'm sorry?"

"Clark," Chloe said, and made the universal awkward hand gestures for 'you know.'

"Oh."

"And to think, I'm always telling Clark off for putting his foot in his mouth at inappropriate times."

Alicia snorted and looked at her askance.

"It's true. That wasn't exactly my brightest moment, but I didn't want to lie."

"I understand, Chloe. I get it, it's okay."

"It isn't. It can't have been easy finding out that a supposedly friendly face has been researching you behind your back, let alone right after you've already faced down a clingy ex-boyfriend who wants to reconnect."

"I'm not interested in Clark anymore," Alicia said in a rush, and then shifted uncomfortably. "It was hard last time, really hard, to see him claim to care for me I saw him, yet not really trust me. I don't want to go back there again."

"I have to say, I was a little surprised that you'd be happy to see me, but not him. Especially after yesterday. I guess I thought he'd be the person here that you'd feel the most connection to, if you were going to come back at all."

"Clark doesn't see things in colours or shades of grey, just black and white. That's not a worldview I'm interested in being a part of anymore."

"But mine is? My opinions aren't that radically different from Clark's, Alicia, or we wouldn't still be best friends."

"I need someone who knows where I'm coming from. Clark just- he's not very good at putting himself in other people's shoes."

"He might not be as bad as you remember," Chloe ventured. "We've all grown up a lot since then."

"He means well. He always did, and he's always been good at feeling for others, but not always at logically understanding viewpoints different to his own. I need someone who can actually hear what I'm trying to say, not just what they think they should be hearing. When I went to see him yesterday, let's just say he didn't hear me any better than he used to."

"You do realise that's a pretty hard thing to find though, right? I mean, not too long ago I thought I'd married that sort of connection." Chloe sighed gently.

Alicia started and her gaze swung to Chloe's hand. "I didn't, I mean, you don't-" She waved vaguely at Chloe's ring finger.

"Oh, you mean the lack of ring?" Chloe sighed and grimaced, and looked at the skin that should have been under a gold band. "It ended badly, and pretty quickly. Actually, I don't know if you could say it really got a chance to get started. Apparently I'm not the marrying type."

"I'm sorry," Alicia said, and reached out to squeeze Chloe's other hand, where it rested on the table. The gesture took Chloe's breath away, coming from someone she hadn't expected to be on speaking terms with again.

"It happens. I guess I just felt like it was time to try taking the ring off."

"I can understand that," Alicia said quietly. "I think that's what I was thinking when I accepted the transfer to Metropolis. That it was time to stop letting something that was old and done with tie me down."

"It's a better reason than most to go back home, I guess."

"Do you want more coffee?" Alicia asked, but Chloe shook her head. "You know that you're the only person from Smallville that I've been seeing, right Chloe?"

Chloe looked up, and Alicia caught her gaze. She swallowed. Hard. Alicia was looking at her so earnestly, and all she could seem to concentrate on was the smell of Alicia's perfume. Or was it just Alicia? Alicia and her perfume?

"Coming back has been harder than I thought it would be. I didn't expect to see so many familiar faces if I just stuck to Metropolis."

Chloe nodded wordless agreement.

"I've made a different life for myself, where I could be who I was with my closest friends but not risk being labelled as just another crazy meteor freak. I suppose I didn't expect that this proximity would bring it all back up again."

"I guess Clark acting like a particularly stubborn dog with a bone isn't helping, huh?"

"Not really, no," Alicia laughed and waved it off. "But you have been. You're still a familiar face, but you've made me feel comfortable."

"Even when I went all stalking reporter on you?"

"Even with that. I told you I needed some time to think it over, and I did, and I can understand why.

"But one of the first things you told me was that you didn't want to reconnect with people who'd feel obliged to suspect you. That you couldn't enjoy spent with them, and it was all so much unnecessary stress."

"And yet, I've really been enjoying our time together, Chloe. I can't explain it either, and it's the complete opposite of what I expected when I came here, but it's the truth."

*** * * * ***

After Alicia left, Chloe wandered back up to her apartment absentmindedly, half tidying and making her bed because she had to, and half just moving for the sake of moving so she could try to clear her thoughts. It wasn't working. Everything was still a tangled jumble in her head.

Still, there wasn't anyone to talk to about this. Lois had her own second-hand Alicia issues and the thought of having a conversation with Lois about her sudden girl crush on Alicia Baker, of all people, made her nervous. Oliver was busy deciding whether he was being flippant one week or the dedicated superhero the next, and Clark was wrapped up in his own, unrealistic idea of justified guilt.

She could see that Clark genuinely believed he felt heart rending guilt over Alicia. She was used to his extreme emotionalism, but. Well. It didn't make anything easier on Chloe, not when she felt so adrift.

Urgh.

Chloe flopped down on the couch and grumbled to herself, and then her stomach grumbled back, reminding her that she hadn't had breakfast yet.

*** * * * ***

A delivery man brought a small bouquet of flowers to Isis the next morning for one Chloe Sullivan, please sign here. They were pink and orange roses in a tiny silver vase, and they smelt divine.

The card read: _Thank you for making coming home easier. Alicia._

*** * * * ***

Oliver dropped by Isis that day to check in, poke about for more gossip about Clark's ex-girlfriends, and debrief her next mission as Watchtower, all under the guise of making another large donation to Isis.

"It's a good thing you need a cover for being here so often, or I'd need to spend more time fundraising," Chloe joked when she saw him looking at the vase, but it didn't work.

"Looks like you have other admirers who might be willing to fill your accounts," he laughed as he reached for the card, and Chloe just sighed and hid her face in her hand while he read it.

*** * * * ***

"Are you sure about this, little cuz?"

"Hmm?" Chloe reached over to fiddle with the stove settings some more. "I'm a little pre-occupied with cooking us dinner, Lois. Sure about what?"

"Being all buddy-buddy with Alicia. I mean, don't get me wrong, she seems like a nice girl these days, but…."

"But she used to be a psycho-killer?"

Chloe started flicking off appliances and upended all the food onto appropriate plates, so that she could lean back and raise her eyebrows at Lois without distractions. Lois shrugged and avoided her eyes, twisting a napkin in her left hand and laying out the cutlery in the wrong order.

"Well, yeah. I know everyone went over and over this last time she was in town, but you still can't deny that she tried to stick a great big knife in Lana."

"Yes, and Lana's never been known to push people past the point of rationality before?" Chloe laughed and started ferrying everything from counter to table.

"Chloe! What?" Lois practically reared back in shock.

"Oh come on, Lois, I was kidding. Seriously, she had a little difficulty in the early days of her meteor infection, sure. But she's not the only one, and it doesn't exactly brand her as homicidal for the rest of her life. She was treated and she's been stable for years."

They paused for a moment to settle themselves in seats and pass plates of vegetables back and forth.

"But still, should you be encouraging her to send you flowers?" Lois finally said, once they were both served and sorted and picking up their knives and forks.

"I deal with people like Alicia all the time at Isis, Lois. I wouldn't be there if I didn't believe in second chances, or giving the meteor infected a chance to prove themselves sane and capable. And it isn't any of yours, or Oliver's, business if someone is sending me flowers."

"But you're not... I mean, you're not-"

"Yes, Lois?" Chloe raised her eyebrows while Lois made exaggerated hand motions and choked on her words.

"You know what I mean! You don't mess around with the people you counsel at Isis, am I right?"

"No, I don't," Chloe laughed awkwardly around a mouthful of steak. "It would be unprofessional. Pass the salt?"

"Right, unprofessional. So you're not- with Alicia- are you?"

"Lois," Chloe said, and stopped what she was doing to face Lois head on. "Alicia doesn't go to Isis for counselling or support."

They stood looking at each other for a moment, while Lois thought that over and nodding and seemed to shrug a little to herself. She nodded a little more empathetically after a moment, so Chloe smiled and turned back to her meal.

"So, you're dating her?"

Chloe huffed. "No."

"But, Chloe! Flowers!"

"Didn't Oliver also tell you what the card said? She's just grateful for a friendly face that isn't Clark's."

"Yeah, Smallville has been a bit of a pain lately," Lois said with a grimace.

"Exactly. And however annoying he's been to us, he's probably been a thousand times worse with Alicia."

Lois nodded, and then waited a few beats before landing her sucker punch.

"Can't say even Clark could drive me to sending platonic flowers to someone, though."

"Lois!"

"Is that them, there?" Lois said, and pointed to the flower arrangement now on the coffee table. "It is, isn't it. They're cute. Borderline romantic, maybe, but definitely not 'just friends' flowers."

"It's a tiny arrangement, and they're pink and orange!"

"They're also roses. And they came with a vase too, that can't have been cheap."

"Lois-" Chloe groaned.

"I'm just concerned that this is all a little quick."

"There's nothing going on to be 'too quick' about."

"You're kidding, right?"

"You're over-reacting."

"Hey, I'll have you know Oliver was also wondering what was up with Clark's ex buying you gifts."

Chloe rolled her eyes and loaded up her fork. Their food was getting cold.

"He said he'd been having a little trouble tracking you down lately. That's not like you, Chlo."

"So I'm going out and doing something for me, without notifying everyone of my location so they can interrupt me with their problems. Maybe it's about time. Maybe I'd still be married if I did this sooner."

"Look, I'm all for a little partying and letting off steam, but you've got everyone a bit thrown. Oliver called me, you know. Oliver!"

Chloe just stuck her fork in her mouth and chewed defiantly.

"And you wander home at all hours with that crazy little grin-"

"Hey!"

"- and you're practically living in each others pockets. You do know I'm happy for you, right Chlo? Just as long as you're sure."

"If there was - and there isn't! - something going on, Lois, I'd be sure. And if I wasn't, you'd already know about it."

Lois smiled. "Back at you," she said, and then poked at her steak with her fork. "I suppose we should have been eating just now, huh."

Chloe smirked, just a little, and dug in as well.

*** * * * ***

"I haven't said it yet, because I sort of assumed it goes without saying, but then I often forget what it must have been like to grow up in small town Kansas, of all places," Lois said after dinner, when they were curled up on the couch.

Chloe blinked at Lois, and then followed the line of her gaze right to Alicia's flowers.

"There's nothing wrong with liking another girl, Chloe. I might not be totally prepared and on top of how to talk to you about your first bout of lesbianism-"

Chloe choked on her coffee.

"- and you can't exactly blame me for not seeing this one coming so soon after Jimmy and everything. But I'm not worried about you liking a girl just because that girl is Alicia Baker. I just don't want you to get hurt."

Chloe kept choking.

"That's all I'm saying," Lois reiterated, and pounded her on the back.

"Alicia is perfectly healthy these days," Chloe finally gasped out, her eyes watering and tears on her cheeks.

"Right, sure, but you still need to consider that track record. It doesn't just disappear."

"We've been talking all about it, and I've hooked her up with some of the extra resources Isis can provide for her, and she's doing well. You have nothing to worry about."

"That's also not the only way you could get hurt-"

Chloe's phone started beeping on the counter.

"I'm not exactly diving into anything, Lois." She said as she walked over and flipped open her phone, wiping at her face, and smiled. One new message, from Alicia Baker. "We're just hanging out and having fun."

"Are you sure? Because you seem a little giddy."

"Giddy?" Chloe snorted. _Are you free for lunch tomorrow? A xx_ "I don't think I'm giddy, Lois."

"Oh really? So that sparkly look in your eyes doesn't mean that message was from Alicia, hmm?"

"What are you talking about?" Chloe scoffed as she typed in a response. "There's no sparkling."

_Love to. Coffee shop?_

"You can't fool me, Chlo, so don't even try it. There are definite sparkles."

_Absolutely, can't wait._

Chloe flipped her phone shut with a smile, and then jumped when she looked up and was faced with Lois' accusatory finger.

"That's the look! That one right there," Lois crowed.

"Would you stop that? Seriously, it's annoying."

Lois smirked and dropped her hand.

"You know I just want you to be happy, right?"

"Yes, Lois, I know. And I love you for it, but I'm not Lucy, and I don't need you to watch my every move for me."

Lois shrugged, and picked up her fork.

"If it's what you want, Chlo."

"It is," Chloe said emphatically, and then looked down at the phone in her hand. "It really is," she said a little softer, to herself.

*** * * * ***

As she walked up the last few steps to Isis the next morning, Chloe heard raised voices. Concerned, she quickened her pace and threw open the door, and then everything went immediately silent.

Clark turned to her with a beseeching look on her face, but it only took one glance at the tears in Alicia's eyes for Chloe to know where her biggest concern lay.

"I'm sorry about this," Alicia said with a question in her eyes. "I'll see you at lunch?"

"Yes, and it's okay, go," Chloe said and nodded at her, and smiled as relief eased through the tension on her face before she transported away.

"No-" Clark said and started to step towards where Alicia had been standing.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?"

"I wanted to talk to her."

"You didn't just talk to her, you made her cry, Clark!"

"I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Yet it still did," Chloe slammed her bag and her stack of files down, and shoved him out of the way. She was a little surprised that he let her, but the doggone look on his face seemed to suggest he knew exactly what she was saying and why. "You need to let this go, Clark."

"No, I need to make things up to her."

"You can't fix what happened in the past, you're just causing her more pain!"

"I have to apologise for everything I did wrong before."

"No!"

"Then for today at least. She- it wasn't- I didn't mean to make her cry."

"Then I'll tell her you're sorry for it, but you need to stay away from her, Clark. She's out of patience for this, and so am I."

"I'm sorry, Chloe," Clark said, and her took by the shoulders. "I keep forgetting…"

"That I'm involved in this too?"

Clark nodded.

"Just drop it and we'll be fine," she said, and shrugged off his hands so she could take the files she'd slammed down, and carry them to the right desk.

"I need to get back to the Daily Planet."

"And I need to check on Alicia," she countered, and tried not to feel reflex pity for his wince. "I'll talk to you later, Clark, okay?"

"Fine," he said, and walked to the door. "And Chloe?"

"It's okay, just get back to work," she said and waved him off. He smiled grimly and nodded once before zipping away. Of course the air current from his super speed also left her top few files scattered across the floor. She shook her head and stepped over them to reach for the phone.

*** * * * ***

"I'm sorry I'm so cranky," Chloe sighed as she opened her front door.

"Long day?"

"Yup. Thanks for lunch though, it was a life-saver."

Alicia stepped through the door and then turned back towards Chloe. Once the door was shut behind them, she gently brushed Chloe's hair out of her face.

"Let me get that," she said and reached for Chloe's jacket and bag. "You should put your feet up."

Alicia carefully laid her things across the table and then pulled an unresisting Chloe over to the couch.

"Here, lie down," she said and tugged her down. Chloe sighed heavily and sprawled backwards with her eyes closed. It felt like bliss, and she didn't process when Alicia continued to tug at her until she was turned around, and stretched out with her head resting against Alicia's thigh. "That's better, just relax if you can."

_I can do that. Super easy_, Chloe thought, and let herself drift. She could vaguely feel Alicia's hands smoothing across the front of her shoulders and rearranging her collar so it was sitting more comfortably. Then they shifted up to carefully stroke through her hair and rub at her temples.

"Does that feel nice?" Alicia asked, and Chloe just hummed happily in response. She could feel Alicia's laughter vibrating through her body before she heard it, and she let herself grin back, but she still didn't open her eyes, and Alicia didn't stop stroking her hair. "I see you brought my flowers home." Chloe hummed again in agreement, and Alicia's giggle sparkled through the apartment.

It was some time later before she could bring herself to feign alertness, and open her eyes.

Alicia was leaning back with her arm along the top of the couch, her head cushioned against it as she curled over Chloe. Her other hand was tangled in Chloe's hair, up and out of her line of sight, but Alicia was watching her closely. A small smiled played about her lips, which Chloe couldn't help but mirror and received a playful tug on her hair for.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I'm no longer a member of the undead legions," she said with a long, really enjoyable stretch. She swung her arms up over her head, stretched out across Alicia's legs, and arched her back for a satisfying crunching sensation. When she let herself fall limply back to the couch, she noticed Alicia's eyes were a little wide and she'd caught her lower lip between her teeth. She also didn't seem to be breathing.

"You certainly look like you feel better," she hurried to add when she noticed Chloe watching her back.

"I do. Thank you." She sat up quickly, and watched Alicia curiously. When she jumped to her feet, Chloe followed.

"Can I get you anything?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, I'm fine."

"No really, I asked you over and I haven't been much of a host yet, have I?" She smiled insistently and went to move past Alicia, only Alicia stumbled back half a step and nearly tripped back onto the couch. She grabbed Chloe's hips for balance, and then blushed a very pretty pink.

"… Maybe I could at least get you a drink?" Chloe added, tentatively.

Alicia nodded very quickly, but neither of them moved. Chloe wasn't sure if she wanted to. Alicia couldn't seem to decide where or what to look at, her eyes flicking from the wall to the table to Chloe's lips and back to the wall, but Chloe could feel her breath against her neck and her hands were warm where they clung to her waist.

She raised a hand to hold one of Alicia's elbows, and steady her. Just steady her, she swore to herself, even though her grip tipped Alicia excruciating millimetres closer.

"Careful there," she said softly, and she eased her thumb across Alicia's skin.

"I wouldn't want to fall," Alicia murmured back, and twisted under Chloe's hand so she could lean in closer to her.

Chloe's eyes fluttered close, as she felt Alicia's breath again on her neck, her cheek, and rustling her hair.

"No. Falling isn't any fun without someone to catch you," she stammered, and stopped breathing when Alicia's hands tightened on her waist.

She wasn't sure how long they stood there like that, neither pushing further but each tiniest fragment of movement electrifying her. Even the lightest of touches dragged at her attention to it until it ached and burned.

"A glass of water would be great," Alicia finally gasped, breaking the moment.

Chloe nodded and broke away to slip past her and into the kitchen, where she had to grip the counter top to stay steady on her feet.

"Would you like ice?"

"Oh. Um, yes? If it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble at all," Chloe smiled, and then gratefully stuck her head in the freezer to locate some ice cubes. Her body felt like it was burning up all over.

She dropped the ice in a glass and filled it with water, and then watched Alicia hurriedly gulp it down.

"I don't normally do things like this," Alicia said once she'd put the glass down.

"What, trip on couches?"she said, and then wanted to kick herself. _I should have gotten some ice for myself_, she thought, but Alicia shook her head gently at her and stepped around the counter.

"No. Get involved with people I already have complicated histories with. It's been a long time since I've done that. It's had to be."

"Right, complicated history. I guess we do have that."

"We do, but it doesn't have to be everything," she said, and took another step closer. Chloe could feel the edge of the counter against the small of her back. "I'd like to give us a go, Chloe. If you do, too?"

"I- I might," she said. Alicia took her words as ample encouragement and slipped her arms around Chloe's waist again.

"We can just see where this takes us," Alicia said with a smile, and tightened her hold on Chloe.

"Right. Wherever it takes us," and Alicia leant forward, stopped Chloe's words with her lips.

*** * * * ***

"Don't freak out," was the first thing out of Chloe's mouth when Lois finally answered her phone. "But Alicia wants to take me out for dinner and dancing."

"My baby cousin really _is_ experimenting with her first bout of lesbianism!" Lois crowed over the phone line.

"Idon'tknowwhattodo," Chloe confessed in a rush, chewing on her thumb nail.

"I'm just chasing a lead right now, Chlo, but I can't imagine it's that much different to dating a guy. You're seen in public together, you both feel awkward about trying to guess what the other person is feeling, and then eventually that passes."

"Right."

"You are just nervous? There's nothing else going on?"

"No, Lois, it's just pre-date jitters I guess."

"You're absolutely sure? Because I can drop this lead and go kick her arse if you need me to."

"Yes, Lois, I'm sure."

"Then go have fun and tell me about it later. You'll be fine."

"Okay," Chloe said, and hung up the phone, still examining her shoe collection. This was ridiculous. She'd spent years yearning after Clark, and then she'd never felt like she had to go out of her way to impress Jimmy. That she was always beautiful no matter what she wore. But this, this was like prom all over again.

*** * * * ***

Dinner and dancing came and went without mishap, though the dinner was more successful than the dancing. Chloe couldn't help feeling self-conscious, like she didn't know the right steps. So they tried dinner and a movie, then dinner and a play, and then something that was more like eating while running and a concert; the days slipped by like Clark super-speeding. Chloe found she didn't mind so much that Lois was still hovering, torn between worry and encouragement.

The first flush of dates were impressive and over the top, and while Chloe enjoyed the glitter and the extravagance, she was glad to slip back into their more sedate lunches. Alicia normally met her at Isis, but one day she was so busy running around the back room of Isis like she'd misplaced her brain that she didn't hear Oliver let himself into the waiting room as well.

Neither did she hear him introduce himself to Alicia, who was waiting very patiently for Chloe to be ready to take her break, and strike up a lively chat.

Instead, Chloe and her misplaced brain were busy accidentally locking themselves inside her own secret surveillance room.

"Alicia!" she yelled, and banged on the inside of the doors. "Alicia, can you hear me? Hey!"

"Chloe?" two voices came, twin in their concern.

"Oliver?"

"Um, maybe you should go call someone-" Oliver said, loudly, and Chloe could just see him shooing Alicia out of the room.

"It's okay, Oliver, she's seen the room," Chloe cried, banging on the door. "Just get me out!"

Their voices dropped down to normal speaking range at that, too low for Chloe to decipher. She groaned and dropped her head forward to rest against the doors, and waiting.

"Just hang on, Chloe, we'll get you out," Oliver called.

"I'm waiting, I'm waiting," she mumbled.

She continued like that for ten or more minutes, checking her wristwatch occasionally and tapping her foot, with no result.

"Guys?"

There was more quiet muttering.

"We can't figure out how to open the door," Oliver's voice finally replied, sounding a little sheepish.

"I accidentally triggered the extra security lock we just installed," _this is utterly ridiculous_, "you need the remote control, it's on the table!" _It shouldn't take a superhero like the Green Arrow this long to crack open a secret room._

"What was that?"

"The remote is on the table!"

There was another round of muttering and the squeak of shifting furniture.

"Chloe, we can't-" Oliver started.

"She's been in there too long," Alicia said, cutting him off. Chloe could only just make out what Alicia was saying with her ear pressed to the hairline crack between the doors, and then only because Alicia's voice was loud in frustration. "This'll go much quicker with Chloe out here."

And she transported inside.

"Oh thank god," Chloe cried, and threw her arms around Alicia. Oliver was making startled noises on the other side of the door. "I thought I was going insane in here."

"I've got you," Alicia said, smiling and squeezing her back. "Want out?"

"Absolutely," Chloe replied, and shut her eyes so she wouldn't see the world drop away from around them.

"You- what- you-"

"I didn't realise a remote was so hard to find." Chloe snorted and swiped up the remote from the conference table, waving it in Oliver's face.

"She-"

"Teleported," Alicia offered.

"Transported immediately and invisibly across space," Chloe agreed.

"How?"

"How does anybody from Smallville do strange things?"

"You…" Oliver blinked at them for a second, but recovered nicely. "I did say Chloe had told me a lot about you, but she failed to mention meteor powers."

Alicia tensed against Chloe's side.

"I didn't tell you _that_ much about her," Chloe grumbled.

"Especially not useful meteor powers."

Alicia and Chloe both blinked owlishly at him for a moment.

"Think of what you could do with powers like that. The places you could get into, you could be invaluable to us," Oliver continued blithely.

"Uh, Oliver-" Chloe started.

"Us? What is he talking about, Chloe?" Alicia interrupted her with a frown.

"She should fill you in."

"Oh, should I?" Chloe snapped, and then found herself looking back and forth between the two of them. "And how much do you expect me to tell her, exactly?"

Oliver shrugged and plastered on his best confident, playboy businessman grin. "I'm sure you can figure out what's need to know without holding everything back," he said, and then cut her off when she opened her mouth to snark back. "I should go, give you some privacy."

"Wait, Oliver-"

"No really, you both need time to talk it over."

"Oliver!" But then he was gone, having slipped through the door and disappeared.

"You're friends with Oliver Queen," Alicia said, slowly from behind her. "And he wants to use my powers somehow?"

Chloe sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I must be missing some crucial part of the puzzle here. Unless I actually just heard Oliver Queen recruiting people with meteor powers."

"It's a long story."

"I don't know if I want to know," Alicia said, and took a step back when Chloe reached for her.

"Alicia, please? It's not what you're thinking, it has nothing to do with Queen Industries."

"Nothing?"

"I promise you, nothing."

Alicia eyed her for a moment.

"It started out with black-market jewellery," Chloe began.

*** * * * ***

 

"So, you're working with a group of vigilantes."

"They're not vigilantes - well, maybe technically, but not in spirit. They're just people with the ability to do something about the rotten parts of our everyday lives, so they do."

Chloe reached for Alicia's hand.

"Clark works with them, for what that's worth."

Alicia pulled back and shook her head.

"I know he's not perfect and I get that you're not exactly on the best of speaking terms, but you have to admit he has a pretty strong and admirable code of ethics," Chloe coaxed. Alicia shrugged and shot her a wary look.

"I don't like this."

"That's okay," Chloe admitted, and sat back herself, disgruntled and frustrated. "I never wanted to pull you into this."

They sat side by side in silence for a little while longer, and Alicia's hand finally slipped over and brushed the side of Chloe's, but she didn't hold it.

"Do you think he'll drop it?"

"Honestly? I don't know," Chloe sighed. "I've never seen him head hunt anyone for this before."

"I can't…," Alicia started, and then her voice dissolved on a tiny choking sound, making Chloe sit up and turn to Alicia in alarm. "I don't want to sneak around using my powers behind peoples backs, Chloe."

"Hey, it's alright." Chloe pulled Alicia into her arms, murmured and stroking her back, and cursing Oliver for making her tremble. "I'll make him back off."

"I can't do that," Alicia insisted, voice muffled against Chloe's throat. "I can't."

*** * * * ***

"Oh look, the great and mythical Clark Kent returns," Chloe gushed sarcastically when Clark finally showed his face at her apartment door that night. "Where have you been hiding?"

"I've been around," Clark said, gesturing vaguely and cringing slightly when he caught sight of her expression.

"That's funny, because I haven't seen hide nor hair of you lately, and I know you haven't been particuarly busy outside of office hours because I checked with Oliver."

"You know what being a reporter can be like-"

"That's funny, because I've been seeing plenty of Lois and you have much the same job."

"It was Lois who insisted I give you space!" he broke out, indignant.

"She did, did she?" Chloe arched an eyebrow.

"She kept giving me this long speech about Jimmy and boundaries and space and flowers blooming."

Chloe quickly covered her laugh with a cough.

"Go on," she said, and crossed her arms.

"To be perfectly honest with you, I didn't understand half of what she said, but I did agree with her on one thing. I was really pushy about Alicia, and I wasn't a very good friend, and I'm very sorry, Chloe."

Chloe raised her eyes to the ceiling, but uncrossed her arms and smiled at him.

"I suppose I could accept that apology."

"You have every right to be friends with whoever you want," he continued in rush, with an eager grin. "I know we had that two sides to every story talk after the wish granting thing, but losing Jimmy can't have been easy for you, and you've probably been feeling isolated."

"Lois said that to you, didn't she?" Chloe asked, eyeing Clark skeptically.

Clark stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, shaking his head and shrugging.

"No. That was all me." He paused and looked at her, and then they broke out into matching grins at the same moment. "Okay, maybe a little bit of it was Lois."

"Do you mind if we…?" Chloe gestured to the couch, and was relieved when Clark quickly hustled himself over to it. "I've had a bit of an eventful day," she said, as she collapsed herself with a sigh.

Clark looked at her quizzically.

"Oliver and Alicia met, and I got locked in the Watchtower room, and it was this drama-"

"Wait. Oliver met Alicia?"

"Yes, and now he's making noises about Alicia joining the rest of you superheroes."

Clark's brow furrowed.

"I know, that was pretty much my reaction."

"How did she take it?"

"Not very well," Chloe said, and fiddled with the hem of her skirt absentmindedly, but watched Clark's reaction carefully.

"He upset her?" Clark sat up straight. "Chloe, you have to tell me exactly what happened."

"Clark," Chloe huffed. "If she is upset, the last thing she wants is for you to go storming in."

Clark visibly clenched his teeth and glared back at her.

"I mean it, Clark. She doesn't want you protecting her. She doesn't want anything to do with you at all!"

"Oliver has no right-"

"I'm handling it."

"- to think he can go marching in -"

Clark was suddenly on his feet, pacing and clenching his hands into fists as well.

"A little like you are right now?"

"- as if he knows everything and has some right to go stomping all over Alicia's wishes!"

"I repeat, a little like you're acting right now?"

Clark deflated.

"I just don't want her to get hurt," he said, downcast.

"I know, Clark. But that's not up to you. If you want to talk to Oliver, fine, but just make sure you don't also end up on Alicia's toes."

Clark sat down again heavily, and gave her a tremulous half-smile.

"She's okay, Clark, I'm going to make sure of that."

*** * * * ***

"So, I've been talking to Lois," Clark said awkwardly the next day.

_Shit_, Chloe thought. She'd almost gotten away without needing to have the 'I'm dating your ex-girlfriend, sorry about that' conversation, and had hoped Clark simply wouldn't know how to approach the issue.

"Chloe, I-"

"I'm sorry," she rusheed to cut him off. "I thought you already knew."

"I can't believe you did this," he admitted, looking lost.

"Look, Clark, I know you've got this idea in your head of what you Alicia were meant to be, but it's just... It's not reality. You haven't had even a distant relationship with her for years now, and let's face it, you've both moved on. It's just that her reappearing in Metropolis brought up old memories."

"You're meant to be my friend," Clark insisted, his face stormy.

"Clark, you're everything to me, and you know it. If I honestly thought there was anything left between the two of you then nothing would have happened between me and Alicia. I wasn't exactly expecting it to! But it did happen, and I'm not going to give up a great start to a relationship because you still have an infatuation with the idea of what you and Alicia could have been in high school!"

Clark pouted.

"I'm sorry. I honestly thought you'd cottoned on and just didn't know how to talk about this."

Clark's eyes darted away for a moment, and then back again.

"It is… a surprise," he muttered, and Chloe snickered.

"To me more than anyone," she said wryly, with a shake of her head.

"Well. Maybe more to Lois?" Clark said, and smirked when Chloe's eyes flew back to him in surprise. Then they both chuckled together, and Chloe relaxed. Clark was still holding himself tall and tense when he left, but it was a start, and a better one than she'd expected, coming from Clark.

*** * * * ***

"Watchtower is online," Chloe said, and had to struggle not to laugh when Dinah and her boys all chorused hello's back to her in concert.

"We need to move in now, Watchtower," Dinah replied. "But from what we've already seen it looks like the original floor plan has been altered. We don't know how much has been changed."

"I'm on it, Black Canary. I'll check their servers for updated blueprints."

"While we wait, why don't we ask Watchtower for her opinion on the Green Arrow's new recruit," Bart piped up.

"New recruit?" Chloe asked in between bouts of typing.

"Yeah, he talked to a teleporter just before the mission. Wouldn't teleporting be a cool addition to the group!"

"Now isn't the time. Focus on the mission," Oliver interrupted hastily while Chloe fumed.

"Spoilsport," Bart accused playfully, but Chloe couldn't say anything. The inside of her suddenly felt like it had been pulled out, jumbled up, and then shoved back in with no finesse whatsoever. She imagined Alicia feeling pushed into playing vigilante cloak and daggers and cringed: people already mistrusted her because of her powers.

Her Alicia being poked and prodded by Oliver's ideas of duty and responsibility, when she didn't want to be.

Oh sure, his big vision could be alluring and confronting all at the same time, and it wasn't like he badgered. But he was very good at planting seeds in people's heads and then backing off to let that do the work for him. Only Alicia had enough things crowding up her head and lying around in insidious wait for her to drop her guard. She didn't need more.

Chloe had to bite her tongue and dig her nails into the palm of her hand until they drew blood to hold her peace until the mission was safely completed, and even then she barely managed it. She held on until the very end, when everything was done and everyone was safely out.

"Watchtower needs a word with Green Arrow," was all she said then before switching off her ear piece. Then she closed up the room and settled in to wait in the front with her laptop hooked up to track Oliver's movements, watching her phone in case Alicia called. Watching the faint flashing light of Oliver's tracker moving along streets and jumping across buildings slowly lulled her back to some semblance of calm. She wasn't right on the verge of ripping his eyes out when he arrived, but it was close.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she screeched, jumping to her feet before he'd had a chance to drop his hood or lose his tech'd up sunglasses.

"Relax, she said no."

"I already told you she wasn't interested!"

"Which I also gathered when she told me to get lost and then disappeared," he snapped. "Look, if you don't like the way I run this operation, you're free to leave at any time."

"If I don't like the way you _run this operation_?" Chloe stumbled back a step like she'd been slapped. "I thought we were supposed to be friends as well, Oliver. Or didn't you think of that once you thought you'd set your sights on another superhero recruit? Did you ever think someone with Alicia's history might not be the best candidate in the first place?"

"I did my research," Oliver snapped. "She checks out, and you told me yourself that she's healthy and stable again."

"Did you stop to think that someone who's struggled with mistrust because of her powers might not be lining up to use them secretly? And that she might be right not to, or that it might not be healthy for her to start doing that?"

Oliver opened his mouth, and then paused, shutting it again.

"No, of course you didn't."

"Look, Chloe," Oliver practically snarled, and then stopped, ran a hand over his face and started again. "I honestly didn't mean to upset you this much."

"If you mean that, then promise me you'll leave her alone."

"I can take a hint. She's not interested, I get it."

"Do you?"

Oliver held up his hands in surrender.

"I do. I'm sorry," he said, watching her carefully. "Look, I'll go. Let you get home. But Chloe, I mean it."

Chloe sighed.

"Okay," she said, and shrugged when Oliver offered a smile, and then watched him pull up his hood and head out the window, because nothing in her life was normal. She checked her phone once more before packing up and heading to her car. No new messages, and no missed calls. _Dammit, Alicia, where are you?_

*** * * * ***

Chloe sent a few text messages that night: one as she was leaving Isis, one sitting in traffic, and another when she got home. She held her impatience until a reasonable hour of the morning, but calling only got her put through to voicemail.

_'I'm really sorry about what happened, Alicia. I told Oliver off, and he's promised not to contact you again. Will you call me? Please?'_

It took Chloe a few days to land on Alicia's doorstep, but that didn't get her anywhere either, and staking out the front of Alicia's place of work only resulted in the foyer staff looking at her oddly. It was hard to track down a teleporter.

_'He's a total moron. I know it, you know it, and now I've made sure he knows it. Please, Alicia, just give me another chance to talk.'_

Still nothing. Chloe couldn't sleep easy, and didn't want to eat. Work was dull, missions were agony, and when Clark dropped his bitter defensive act earlier than expected, she knew she was letting the pain show. As if she could do anything else; first she lost her husband, then the man who'd followed her around proclaiming endless love before the ceremony disappeared into thin air, and now her rebound-turned-real relationship was gone as well.

"I'm useless," she moaned to Lois, her face buried in a pillow, while she tried to ply her with ice cream and silly movies. "I don't blame any of them for leaving."

At Isis though, Chloe was the professionalism so that Clark and Oliver wouldn't see all of what she was really feeling. They thought they did, and she couldn't tuck it all away, but she only let herself break with Lois because she knew her cousin was there to catch her.

_'Please. I just need to know you're alright.'_

The next time she called and was told to leave a message after the beep, she threw the receiver at the wall, and left it lying there, broken.

*** * * * ***

"What's with the odd coffee concoctions you always try to cheer me up with?"

"Every girl knows that sugar and caffeine is the best consolation for anything," Lois insisted and nudged the cup - although Chloe thought bowl might be a more accurate description - closer to her.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

"There are candy stars floating on the top," Chloe observed wryly.

"I know! Drink up!"

Chloe snorted over how ridiculous the whole thing would taste, like sugar and defined streaks of artificial colours, but followed her orders. Lois talked at her at great length while she worked her way through the giant mug, her hands waving wildly and her eyes bright. There was this case, that feature article, and this other ridiculous thing Clark did on the job. Chloe smiled and nodded and sipped at the appropriate times, and tried to avoid looking to her left, at the table where she'd sat with Alicia when the chances for their potential relationship to flourish had been rocky.

That had been about Watchtower too. Chloe didn't do surveillance on Isis' meteor infected clients just for Isis, after all.

*** * * * ***

It was pure chance in the end. It seemed obvious, when Chloe thought about it. You couldn't catch someone with an inhuman ability to flee, unless they wanted to be caught. Or you were really lucky. Chloe had been walking past their coffee shop each lunch time, and calling by some of their favourite restaurants when she could, but unsurprisingly to no avail. Alicia wasn't stupid, and she didn't want to be found. So it wasn't until over a week after Alicia had disappeared, seemingly into nothing, that Chloe found her. There was a little park around the corner from their coffee shop. Still close enough to her work building not to arouse suspicion if she was spotted there by her co-workers more than once, but tucked out of the way, where Chloe wouldn't spot her.

Luck. Chloe had been worn out from constantly keeping an eye out for her, and from running from place to other familiar place on the slim chance she'd be there, and decided to take a day off. Buy herself lunch, and then take it somewhere new to eat. Somewhere she'd never been with Alicia, and then there she was.

Alicia looked up like a startled animal and choked on her sandwich when Chloe called her name.

Chloe sank to her knees, dropping her own lunch and handbag onto the grass, to help her, but Alicia recovered gracefully.

"I didn't expect you to find me here," she admitted honestly.

"I was a little surprised myself," Chloe answered, and allowed her eyes to fall on her lap, which she pulled her lunch bag into and toyed with. When she looked up again because of the silence, she was expecting to be facing an empty patch of grass, but Alicia was still there. Instead of teleporting away, she was simply sitting, watching Chloe.

"You okay?" Chloe had to ask, even if she'd already done so a dozen times in messages and emails.

"I'm fine."

Chloe nodded, wishing she could apologise or ask after her some more, but Alicia looked strained and wary, so she bit her lip and said nothing.

"I need to get back to work," Alicia said, after a few more moments.

"Wait, can we-"

"Talk?" Alicia shrugged. "I suppose we have to eventually."

"Just tell me when and where and I'll be there."

"I'll head to yours after I'm finished for the day," Alicia said and gathered her things up. Chloe echoed her movements, and wistfully watched her check she had everything in its right place.

"I'm really sorry about Oliver," Chloe rushed to say before she went, and then wanted to smack herself on the forehead.

"We'll talk about it later," was all Alicia said, her eyes carefully averted.

Chloe resettled herself and slowly ate her lunch on autopilot. It wasn't until later, when she checked her watch, that she realised she'd turned her quick fifteen minute break into a distracted, hour-long lunch staring sightlessly at a dying clump of grass.

She decided not to go back to Isis after that. There weren't any appointments in the afternoon - at least as far as she knew - so it didn't make any difference whether she stared at an Isis wall or stared at a wall in her own apartment.

*** * * * ***

When Alicia knocked on her door, Chloe allowed herself a quick, mournful moment to regret the incredibly short period of time that Alicia had felt comfortable simply teleporting in. Then she steeled herself, put on her best neutral face, and opened the door.

"You're home," Alicia said, and then checked her watch

"Hoping to miss me while I was out?" Chloe asked, with a flash of fear, but Alicia hurried to correct her.

"No, I just expected to have to wait for you downstairs."

Chloe let that sink in for moment, and ease away some of her tension, before she stepped aside.

"Please, come in."

It was so much like the first time Alicia had been in her apartment, the day that Chloe had confessed to researching her whereabouts since she left Smallville, that it hurt. They were awkward and overly bright as they moved around the room, and Chloe found herself compulsively hunting up things for them to drink and nibble on. Anything to fill the painful silences.

"Chloe," Alicia said eventually, moving to grab her wrist as she went to refill their drinks. "Stop."

"Stop what?" Chloe asked, cheerfully, but her lip quivered. "I thought we should be comfortable while we talked."

"Maybe talking isn't what we need," Alicia said, softer this time, as she raised Chloe's hand to her mouth and gently kissed the inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand, then turned her hand over and pressed a longer kiss to her knuckles.

They both moved slowly, tentatively, and Chloe knew she should have been relieved, but she wasn't. Everything felt like a long, careful goodbye, even as Alicia kissed the tears from her cheeks and Chloe's hands slipped under Alicia's shirt.

They undid buttons oh so carefully, and softly tugged down zips, until there was nothing between them but air, and then Alicia wrapped herself around Chloe until there wasn't even that. They kissed for what seemed like hours, with Alicia's hands clenched in Chloe's hair and holding her jaw so that her mouth was open to be plundered. Chloe's arms were wrapped around Alicia, her hands flattened against her shoulder blades, holding her tightly, and they rocked, gently, each movement punctuated with tiny whimpers into each others mouth. After a while, Alicia loosened her grip on Chloe's head, and slipped a hand down between while she mouthed at Chloe's jaw, and then Chloe was crying and crying out and for a single, bright second everything was perfect.

Then they moved to the bed and they did it all again, as Alicia caressed farewells into every curve of Chloe's skin, and Chloe kissed her reluctance to say goodbye in every twist of Alicia's hair, and her eyelashes, and the arch of her hip.

Afterward, Alicia dropped quickly into sleep with a sated sigh, her hand clenched around Chloe's forearm, but Chloe lay awake in the dark. Shadows danced across the wall for her, obligingly complementing her dark thoughts, while she tried to find the will to let go.

*** * * * ***

The difficult part of their interrupted conversation started the next morning, before Chloe even had the chance to wake up properly.

"I can't do this, Chloe, I know you understand that," Alicia said, her fingers trailing through Chloe's hair and their legs tangled together.

Chloe didn't answer; she wanted to bury herself under the covers, pull Alicia under there with her and never come out again.

"This isn't about you," she continued, like Chloe didn't need to be part of the conversation. And maybe that was true. "I adore you."

"Do you?" Chloe grumbled into her pillow, but the hand in her hair didn't stop.

"I do. Maybe I could even love you one day, but I can't handle this superhero thing."

Chloe snorted, biting the inside of her cheek so that the anger couldn't transform into sadness.

"Do you know that the thrill I feel when we transport somewhere together is the same as the thrill I get playing Watchtower?"

"Yes. And there's nothing wrong with you for doing what you do and wanting to be part of something extraordinary."

"There's nothing wrong with it, except you can't handle being even distantly connected to it."

"My powers still thrill me, too, every day. But Chloe, my meteor exposure made me sick at first. Now I can't expect people to trust me if I'm using my powers to sneak around and hide things from them."

"Then don't take up Oliver's offer. I thought you already decided that? Just because I work with him doesn't mean you have to as well."

"And when I still end up sneaking around and hiding things from people, only to cover for you instead of myself? What then?"

"Then," Chloe sighed, and rolled onto her back, pulling free from Alicia's legs and almost - but not quite - easing out from under her hand, "I suppose you'd still be stuck."

They lay there quietly for a little while, Chloe staring at the ceiling and feeling Alicia staring at her in turn.

"So maybe it's better if we just stopped this here."

"Maybe it is," Chloe said decisively, nodded firmly as if she were sure about what she was saying and doing. She felt like a bobble-headed doll, weak and silly, just nodding and nodding and letting things turn out how they would.

Alicia sat up and ran a hand through her hair, letting the sheets fall away, and Chloe couldn't help but look.

She was glorious. Her hair curled and bunched in all directions around her head; the curve of her breast and smooth expanse of her back beckoned to Chloe's hands. She nearly gave in too, to the desire to touch and hold and kiss, but Alicia shivered in the morning air and swung her legs out of bed.

"I should shower," she said over her shoulder with a sad smile, and then she leaned in for one last lingering kiss and caressed the side of Chloe's face, before jumping up and darting into the bathroom.

*** * * * ***

"Clark! Uh, what are you doing here?"

"I thought you could do with some company," he said, brandishing a box of chocolates and a take away coffee cup.

"Right. Um, it's just that-"

"Chloe, you're out of towels," Alicia called as she left the bathroom. Thankfully she didn't go far, Chloe noticed, and there'd been at least one towel in there because it was wrapped around her body while her hair dripped everywhere. She startled when she saw Clark standing near the door. He looked back and forth between the two of them frantically for a moment and then, before Chloe could say 'um' and try to explain, he bolted.

Alicia winced when Chloe looked at her.

"Sorry, I didn't realise you were expecting company."

"I wasn't," Chloe groaned, and went to rummage through her linen.

*** * * * ***

"You know I care about you a lot, Chloe," Alicia said as she headed for the door, after she'd dried her hair and dressed. Chloe just handed Alicia her coat from where it was slung by the door and pressed her lips tightly together, willing herself not to cry.

"I've been thinking," Alicia tried again, "about the ways things happened last time, with Clark. I don't want us to end like that, Chloe, and I don't want another over the top, dramatic Kansas break-up. You're more important to me than that."

"So you're saying you want to be pen pals?" Chloe let herself laugh bitterly, quickly wiping away a single tear. "I suppose I can't say that's not better than my last break-up, at least."

Alicia tilted her head and watched her intently, her expression serious.

"I understand if you need time or you don't want to write, but I'll let you know where I end up," she said as she pulled her coat on, "and I hope that one day you'll be able to write back."

Then she was gone, with a flick of her coat and the long blonde hair Chloe has been fantasizing about for weeks. Just like that, gone.

"This is more like what happened with Clark than you're admitting," she said to empty air. She stood there and listened to the bustle of the Talon below her for a long time.

*** * * * ***

After Alicia left, Chloe pulled herself together for long enough to make a few calls to reschedule appointments and counselling sessions, and then she skipped work entirely. She headed straight for Lois' new place in Metropolis, calling her en route to let her know. She tried to be brave on the phone, just said she needed somewhere to hang out that wasn't home. 'Hide out' was probably more accurate, but she knew Lois would hear that in her tone and she didn't want to admit it, not out loud. Not yet.

Still, Lois was leaning against the front door of her apartment when she gets there, her keys in one hand, the other toying with her cellphone. A few tears finally escaped when Chloe spotted her, and Lois drew her into a tight hug, calling her 'baby cousin' before pulling her inside and wrapping her up in a blanket on the couch.

Chloe refused coffee and the stale biscuits from the back of Lois' cupboards. Instead, she just enjoyed being somewhere that felt safe.

"Do you want me to ask what happened?" Lois finally asked, sitting close enough to wrap her arm around Chloe's shoulder if she needed to.

"Everything, and nothing. We're still just too different in some ways and too similar in others, so it wasn't going to work."

"You'll be okay, Chlo."

She didn't have anything to say to that. It was exactly what Lois had said after Jimmy left, and the pain that was specific to Jimmy might have started to fade, but something else seemed to immediately fall down to compensate.

They sat in silence for a long time and the tears kept falling while Chloe haltingly told Lois everything she could. It wasn't much, and she had to go slowly to make sure she didn't accidentally let anything about Watchtower or Clark, or Bart and the others, slip - which underminesdLois' ability to understand any part of the argument, however small. Alicia came off worse in the telling than she should have, but then Lois knew Chloe.

She could spot the cracks, Chloe believed that. But she wouldn't ask, and she didn't really need to know the whole story anyway. All she needed to know was that Chloe hurt, and that she needed Lois to be there for her. That was all, no more justification needed. She snorted and rolled her eyes when Chloe got to the part where Clark busted in on them.

"I should stop by the farm and explain," Chloe thought aloud idly.

"Let him stew," Lois laughed, finally slinging her arm around Chloe and squeezing her shoulder.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, and the tiny smile makes her face feel like it could crack, but she knew it wouldn't. Just like she knew she was going to search out Clark the first opportunity she got.

*** * * * ***

"I see you're hard at work," Chloe said, smiling tentatively as she crossed the barn threshold.

Clark just grunted at her as he trailed through the barn with a bale of hay in each hand, but he stopped pretending they were heavy once he heard her voice.

"I wanted to talk to you about this morning-"

"Do we have to?" Clark dropped the bales in a corner, and brushed past her on his way back to the truck. Chloe followed him and planted herself between him and the barn, looking up at him with one hand raised to shade her eyes from the sun. Its brightness was starting to dim as the afternoon drew to a close, but her eyes were still sore, even if the red had faded from them, and the light made her flinch.

"Yes."

Clark sighed and dropped the bale he'd just picked up back onto the truck bed, but he didn't talk. She'd caught him by surprise, hadn't given himself a chance to work up the bluster and the courage he needed to tackle a difficult conversation. She wanted to tell him that he'd got the wrong end of the stick, or berate him lightly for never knocking, or just ask him to be her best friend and be there for her. _Please. I need you._

"Alicia's gone," she said instead, and that at least made him look up from the truck bed he'd been studying so intently.

"What?"

"We broke up not long before you arrived. So I suppose your offer of company and comfort wasn't as misplaced as you thought."

"Is she _gone_, gone?"

"She's still in Metropolis for a little while, if that's what you're asking," Chloe said with a shake of her head, and started walking away. "You can probably still track her down," she offered half-heartedly, feeling her face twist with grief.

_Just let him go_, she thought to herself as she put one foot in front of the other. _Go back to Lois. Clark was invested in Alicia too, it's fine. It's fine._

"No- Chloe, wait!"

The breeze of his super-speed was particularly cold on her face, making her realise she'd started crying again.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said, standing in front of her, and then he looked closely at her face and his voice faded to a stop.

"It's fine-" Chloe started, but Clark shook his head and wrapped her in his arms.

"That's not what I meant," he whispered into her hair, and she fell apart at the comfort in his words, comfort she'd been longing to hear since Jimmy, but he held her up.

"It's fine, it's fine, it's fine," she muttered over and over into his chest. He didn't try to tell her that it was or it wasn't. He just told her without words that he had her.

Hours later, they lay curled up in the loft. It was pitch black outside; at some point 'it's fine' had mutated into 'I'm fine' and then faded away altogether, but Clark still held her. His unrelenting solidness was familiar and reassuring, and something that she hadn't realised was coiled tightly in her felt like had snapped clean away.

"I'll be fine," she said quietly into his chest, cried out and exhausted. Her hands still clung to his shirt, and he just looked at her sadly. His face was open and she could see the worry and the love written all over it.

"I will be fine," she said again, with a little more oomph, and he pulled her closer to him. She thought she might be finally starting to believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Amanda and dreamwvr73 for the beta help. Title is derived from the lyrics of Not A Love Song by Uh Huh Her. This story has a soundtrack: [It Feels Like You're Falling: the Character EP](http://shopfront.dreamwidth.org/313023.html).


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